Flash Crash

In 2020, Europe is a dangerous place. The oil shock of 2013 has relegated most citizens in the Hub to a marginal existence, surviving on food handouts. In the ruins of a Costa Blanca seaside resort, day trader Eli supplements his earnings by buying and selling anything he can get his hands on. Meanwhile in London, Meera, the ambitious CEO of an Indian software company, has arrived to pitch for a mysterious contract offered by a consortium of Europe's wealthiest banks. Staying at the same hotel is Fern, an Australian visiting Europe for the last time before she makes a fresh start. Meera's missed date with her ex-boyfriend, a hit-and-run in North London and a massive explosion in the Spanish mountains set off a series of events that will change the world for ever, triggered by a meltdown in the world financial system unless Eli, Meera and Fern can race against the clock to reveal the truth.

If you have been watching the recent news about the world's financial system and wondered 'What if...?", then this book is for you.

Excerpt:

On he went, with the blue of the Mediterranean sea now visible beyond the lakes, between the abandoned tower blocks along the sea front.

At least, he thought they were abandoned. The population of the city was now thought to be no more than 20,000 or so, compared with more than 100,000 who had once made their home there, but no one bothered to keep records any more.

He had never particularly wanted to find out who lived in the tower blocks. Most of those who remained tended to live somewhere they could eke out some kind of subsistence from the soil, and there was little of that in the high-rise former holiday home complexes. He gave them a wide berth, figuring that if there were indeed inhabitants who had moved in, that he did not want to meet them and especially did not want to find out the details of how they were able to survive.

He bypassed the heart of the town, with its grimy streets and shuttered shops and rode further up the coast where the buildings began to run out. He pulled off the road and wheeled his bike across the white sand to a wooden shack, ingeniously nailed together from packing cases and driftwood.

The barking from inside started when he was a good hundred yards up the road.

'Hola!'

He hammered on the side of the building and called out a greeting.

'Buenos!' Sergio opened the door a fraction, making sure Eli was on his own and then gave the bottom of the solid oak door, liberated from a luxury holiday villa a mile or so down the coast, a kick to free it from the makeshift frame. Eli guessed it was the salt water in the air that was making it stick.

The dogs kept up a threatening cacophony of growls and barks, until Sergio silenced them with a sharp word.

Sergio looked more like Robinson Crusoe every time Eli saw him. His black hair, lightly silvered, hung in dreadlocks to waist length and merged with his similarly matted beard. He was bare to his waist, and wore only a pair of army-issue khaki shorts, frayed at the bottom. He could have been any age from thirty to fifty-five.

He flashed a gold-toothed smile and gestured with his hunting rifle for Eli to sit down on the tattered sun lounger.

The gun had bothered Eli when he first met Sergio, but now he was glad it was there.

If he lived somewhere as prominent as Sergio's shack, he would have had more than a single rifle and a few hounds to keep off trouble, but then he guessed he just wasn't the swashbuckling type. Keeping a low profile on the urbs was more his scene, though Sergio swore it was safer to be somewhere you could watch the horizon at all times.